Will Wii Fit work? Week 3 |
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| BY Matthew Razak Jun. 14th, 2008 | More on: |
Above you see a video of Diet.com’s fitness guru Sarah putting Wii Fit through its paces. Or putting a small fraction of the exercises through their paces and then making a decision on it after what seems to be about 20-30 minutes of use. While her conclusion that Wii Fit is not the best work out ever but “every little bit helps” is dead on the money, it’s pretty clear that she didn’t actually work that much with it.
She complains that the breathing isn’t explained but the first yoga pose is in fact deep breathing and although it isn’t repeated in the actual exercise, every time you learn an exercise the breathing is explained to you. Also, her focus on two of the mini-games and none of the strength training exercises is really weird since I would argue that those are the main meat of the game and not the aerobic stuff. Anyway, the yoga and exercises are explained in great detail and while it is of course always better to have a live trainer standing next to you, that isn’t always possible. I will agree though that if you run with Wii Fit you’re a major tool and should just go outside.
Now that that is out of the way (sorry, had get it off my chest) back to the important things in life: me. This was a good week. Since I got my Wii Fitting schedule in order I was able to run almost every day and do yoga along with some strength exercise. Basically, I’ve whittled down the strength exercises to a few key ones and I rotate through them, eliminating the relatively useless ones like the triceps exercise and twists. This way I can actually still have a life and get all my exercise in. And it’s working! Running six days a week is evidently very good for you. Of course the purpose of this experiment is not “Will running work,” the answer to that being, yes, yes it will. But I can tell you I wouldn’t be running if I wasn’t keeping track of my weight and motivated by that fact. In fact I can promise you that, because before Wii Fit I hadn’t been running for five days straight in probably more than a year or so.
So it has me motivated but has it paid off? Well, last week I was saying I needed to break the plateau; consider it broken. I am now at a normal BMI! W00t! And ignore the stupid Wii Fit age. I was tired from my run and did bad on the balance games. I was 24 yesterday, I swear.
June 14th, 2008
at 6:03 pm
How about instead of a publicity stunt you join a freakin gym like normal people and take care of yourself through diet and exercise!
June 14th, 2008
at 6:07 pm
dre, this is a videogame website. Nintendo released a videogame the promotes fitness. Therefore the results of the game on a regular gamer is more than news-worthy. If you have an issue with that you’re more than welcome to not read it, take care.
June 14th, 2008
at 7:00 pm
Dre, I belong to a gym and work out there daily now thanks to WiiFit getting me motivated. I’m sorry if this seems like a publicity stunt to you but Nintendo has nothing to do with it. I personally wanted to see if the game could keep me motivated and so far it has.
June 14th, 2008
at 7:39 pm
Refraining from commenting on the little gem of wisdom posted above, I would like to congratulate you, Matthew, (and your Mii) on finally breaking that plateau. I think its obvious what Wii Fit’s strengths and weaknesses are, with one of its major strengths being, well, motivation. Since using Wii Fit for a full two weeks and realizing its limitations, I have taken a step away from it and returned to the more intense stuff I had been doing beforehand. The Yoga will forever remain awesome, however, and I’m sure I will return to it often.
June 14th, 2008
at 8:02 pm
Woah, progress! And looks like the haircut has attracted a female.
June 15th, 2008
at 6:37 am
online BMI calculator = free
weight scale = 10 bucks
June 15th, 2008
at 10:03 am
Speaking as a trained scientist (ahem), I have to point out that supplementing your Wii work outs with gym based excercise has rendered this experiment null and void. How are we to know if it is the Wii getting you fitter or the gym?
June 15th, 2008
at 2:08 pm
What he’s been talking about for all these weeks is using WiiFit as a motivational tool, not as a 100% excercising machine. Having Wii keep tabs on you daily is what gets one’s ass out the door and move. Wii Fit is something that measures the success/failures and pushes you to do more.
He’s trying to prove what I think Miamoto said about wiifit making people more active and do other training too.
This is a brave thing you’re doing, keep it up man, I’m doing basically the same thing you are. See ya next sat.
June 15th, 2008
at 2:32 pm
You got it right Ronn, thanks. Guys if you go back and read the first post in this series I explain that Wii Fit is far more of a motivational tool than an actual physical workout (though you can get decent core workout from it) and I believe this it what Miyamoto has been saying about it all along. It’s meant to get you active and keep you moving. I wanted to see if it did that. Just like anything that motivates you to get in shape it might work for some and not for others. 90 bucks for something that actually keeps me motivated to exercise (and gives me a new toy to play with) is a good price for me but if what Joe suggests can keep you motivated then hell yes, you should just do that.
June 15th, 2008
at 5:48 pm
I could help but laugh when she was doing the hula hoop. Wow, way to push yourself! Weak. Honestly, if you try and get a high score you are going to get a really good ab workout.
On a side note…I’ve been lifting weights for over 10 years, have an active lifestyle and work out consistently. I was very negative about Wii Fit in terms of finding any benefit. I have to say that the Yoga is great for stretching (something most lifters ignore).
June 15th, 2008
at 7:08 pm
@ Matthew Razak
What i got from you is that WiiFit is a motivational tool, but is it far from an actually workout.
So are you saying he is motivated to do… nothing that helps him physically?
June 15th, 2008
at 8:41 pm
Does Wii fit work…..kinda. I agree with most of what you are saying, but in summary: No Wii Fit WILL NOT get you in shape, but, it WILL motivate you to go out and actually do something about your pathetic lazy self. With just Wii Fit’s influence on your body you might get a bit more flexable, and a bit stronger, but a tiny bit it will be. If you are reading this then you have at least a passing interest in both health and video games, and therefore Wii Fit is indded a justified purchase, if only for its fun and motovationnal purposes. Thanks for the test results Matt.